


try again

by notthelasttime



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Recovery, Slice of Life, Zine: Full Bloom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthelasttime/pseuds/notthelasttime
Summary: The little balcony next to his, barely space enough for one person, suddenly showed the signs of an inhabitant. Curious, that Prompto found himself peeking over to see what was there: a bag of potting soil, a little stool, and a few half-filled ceramic planters. He made himself look away and go back to his computer, knowing he shouldn’t care about some new tenant, a reminder ringing in his head about how no one welcomed snooping.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 2
Kudos: 93
Collections: Full Bloom Zine (Final Fantasy XV)





	1. Prompto

**Author's Note:**

> my contribution to the [full bloom zine](https://twitter.com/fullbloomzine)!!!  
> the zine was an absolute pleasure to work on, thank you so much to the mods, and all the other creators that took part!

He heard nothing.

  
Prompto was laying on his side, staring at the far wall by the window, and he heard nothing. Not the sounds of others, not cars passing outside. He thought: he should get up. He should be working on the million jobs he had to finish. He should open a window and get air into the room, maybe hear people passing on the street outside, and feel a little less lonely.

  
Maybe later.

  
He’d been here before and he’d be here again. The work could wait and the weather was still too cold for open windows. If he slept for a while, he thought he might feel better.

  
Prompto rolled onto his other side for a different view, feeling drained but not tired and wishing there was someone around to talk to.

* * *

He had a new neighbor.

  
First it was sounds through the wall, a cacophony of banging and the creak of old apartment floors groaning. Then voices, too low and muted to carry clearly followed─which didn’t matter so much because Prompto wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. Not really, anyway.

  
The little balcony next to his, barely space enough for one person, suddenly showed the signs of an inhabitant. Curious, that Prompto found himself peeking over to see what was there: a bag of potting soil, a little stool, and a few half-filled ceramic planters. He made himself look away and go back to his computer, knowing he shouldn’t care about some new tenant, a reminder ringing in his head about how no one welcomed snooping.

  
It didn’t concern him, the new addition next door, but the little bit of noise was nice. Loud music, yelling voices late at night heard through paper thin walls could all be in his future, the headache of living in beehive spaces in a city so large. But for now it was nice─a reminder that maybe he wasn’t always entirely alone.

* * *

No one came outside.

  
Rain splattered on the window as Prompto looked out, chewing on a thumbnail and wondering where his quiet neighbor was. They hadn’t met yet, even though it’d been weeks, and all his glances at the balcony never caught the profile of someone else, just pots that appeared, then multiplied, plants beginning to grow, but were quick to wilt from green to brown.

  
He heard muffled footsteps when his neighbor moved, occasionally the sharp thud of something being dropped, and sometimes a voice after it, sharper but just as unintelligible─clear in that it was someone cursing in a deep voice. Sometimes, he heard piano.   
But he never saw who was next door.

  
Until he did.

* * *

It was just like Prompto to mess something up before it even began.

  
It was an accident, but that didn’t always matter so much to his brain─not when the long and short of it was that he, Prompto Argentum, had _screwed up_. Typical. And typical that he already knew his brain would beat him up over it for days to come.

  
He was wheeling around the corner from the stairs, not watching where he was going until the elevator pinged and he crash-landed into whoever was walking out. Something hard snapped him in the shin and Prompto teetered forward, grasping onto the shoulders in front of him to keep himself from falling, nearly taking his hapless victim down with him. Incredibly, they both stayed upright and through the adrenaline in his veins and apologies on his lips, Prompto looked up and saw…

  
A strong jaw, curved lips, and a fine nose─the little imperfection of a bump on the bridge adding character just like the cut across the top of it, the cut down his bottom lip and faded pockmarks on his cheeks.

  
Black glasses, too dark to see through, covered his eyes, but Prompto saw more scars peeking out of the periphery, fresh enough to still look raw, a nasty piece of work that left Prompto gaping and words failing him. 

  
_Stop. Staring_.

  
“ _Easy!_ Hey, you alright?”

  
A voice, but the man’s lips hadn’t moved from their locked position and Prompto looked up to find someone else materialize from the elevator. It was some kind of miracle that Prompto hadn’t noticed him, big as he was, towering over them both. He didn’t look particularly offended, despite the fact that Prompto had just run headlong into a blind man, but then again─the blind man himself was saying nothing.

  
“You must be one of Iggy’s neighbors, huh?”

  
“I uh… yeah I think so. I’m in 801.”

  
“Right next door. See, Iggy? Meetin’ people’s not so hard. I’m sure you could ask your neighbor for help, if you needed, Mr…?”

  
“Uh, Prompto. Just Prompto’s fine,” he said and saw _Iggy_ hold out a stiff, glove-covered hand vaguely in his direction and he got the sense it was an uncomfortable effort, forced on him by the presence of his friend.

  
“ _Ignis_ ,” he said stiffly, and Prompto shook hands before sputtering some excuse about how he had to go, and scurried off to the safety of his apartment. Thinking of Ignis, his scars, and his own overwhelming embarrassment. At least the embarrassment went for them both.

* * *

“Hey uh… y-you want help?”

  
That Ignis was struggling was an obvious, juggling a brown paper bag and fumbling to get his keys in the lock, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring, barely contained irritation showing through. He paused and tilted his head in Prompto’s direction. Part of him was expecting to be snapped at, given their previous run in, but maybe not if Ignis needed the help enough.

  
But there was a difference between want and need and somehow the semantics of it made all the difference when Prompto asked the question, falteringly careful in his wording. He knew well the difference between _wanting_ help versus _needing_ it.

  
“That would be… appreciated. Thank you.” The words sounded ground out of Ignis’s mouth, but they had been said nonetheless. He relinquished his keys and Prompto, careful to leave a breath of space between them, took them without brushing fingers. He fit the key in the lock and pushed the door open, ready to be dismissed, when Ignis said, “Would you like to come in?”

  
The inside of the apartment was meticulously organized, unlike Prompto’s disaster of a living space next door.

  
“Coffee?” Ignis asked, setting his bag down on the kitchen counter and speaking in that same way, as if every word had to escape through a vice in his throat.

  
Prompto nodded, before realizing his mistake, and then stumbled over his words and said too quickly, “Yeah, absolutely, thanks.”

  
“You can, uh, knock on my door if you ever need,” he said later, while the coffee was brewing, “I work from home, so… I’ll be around.” Maybe less _working_ , more staring at a wall, less _I’ll be around_ , more _I don’t get out much_.

  
“What do you do?”

  
“Freelance graphic design.” There was a perilous moment where he almost said, _I could show you sometime_ , and the frozen silence between them told him Ignis felt it. So before things could get overwhelmingly awkward, Prompto blurted out, “I’ve seen your plants. On the balcony.”

  
Ignis frowned. Hesitated, like he was going to say something, then sighed and said something else, “I can’t seem to make anything grow.”

  
Prompto chewed at his lip, “You could talk to them.” Maybe Ignis couldn’t see him, but he could see Ignis and it made Prompto stare at his feet, drawing an invisible line and cross it with the tip of his shoe. “Talking’s supposed to help.”

  
Ignis, expressionless, tilted his head. “Perhaps I could try.”

* * *

“Lavender… thyme… sage...” Prompto watched Ignis’s hand, travel from pot to pot, feeling the shape of them before he named the plant─most of them a little droopy, but nothing so drastic that some water couldn’t fix.

  
It was the first time Prompto had seen him without gloves. Ignis had strong hands and long fingers, the bluish tinge of veins just below the surface on the pale skin. He rubbed the leaves between his fingers and told Prompto to smell each of them in turn.  
“I… used to cook. A friend thought herbs were a good idea.”

  
“What's that one, far left corner?” Prompto asked, the one large pot that Ignis hadn’t addressed, unremarkable green leaves growing up a trellis.

  
There was a sardonic twist on Ignis’s mouth, not the kind of smile Prompt wanted to see. Because he had seen Ignis smile in truth, laughing at something Prompto said while they walked down the street to the store together, as had become habit. It was like the first breath after winter when you could smell green in the air, new life after everything had withered from the cold. It was nice and his breath caught on that image worth remembering. Not like this.

“Flowers,” Ignis said with a hollow laugh, “not my choice.”

* * *

There was a seed in Prompto’s stomach, something small put there the first time he heard a knock on his door and answered it to find Ignis. Ignis, who asked him while looking wildly uncomfortable, if Prompto would mind walking with him to the store.

  
It grew to a little sprout of hope that he nurtured in secret. The little hope that another knock might come and he would see Ignis again. It was nice not having someone force cheeriness on him, asking him in some special voice if he was doing okay. He did Ignis the courtesy of not turning those words back on him and he kept his hands to himself unless Ignis expressly asked for help. He kept his mouth shut from the anxious impulse to over-explain because he didn’t want Ignis to think he was patronizing him.

  
Leaving his apartment was a struggle some days, just like eating or showering or doing anything more than rolling from one side of his mattress to the other but sometimes he thought- _what if_.

  
_What if today is a day that Ignis wants help?_

  
He looked out his window at the drab balcony and the small sprigs of plants that Ignis appeared to be taking care of out of spite, even if most of them were barely hanging on for dear life… and Prompto dragged himself out of bed.

* * *

“Would you like to see something?”

  
Ignis had a look on his face, not _quite_ a smile but something close and that was more than enough to drag Prompto in. As far as he could tell, Ignis had enough scowls and frowns to last the rest of his life and every time in between. 

  
On the unremarkable plant in the corner of the balcony, Prompto saw white blossoms─not just a couple of weak, struggling flowers, but clusters of them filling every space between the sharp, green leaves, spiraling petals and not one wilted or dying flower in sight. Their soft fragrance filled the balcony, no doubt what had given them away to Ignis.

  
Prompto stepped forward, as much as he could in the small space, wedging his foot between two pots to lean in closer and stick his nose into the plant before breathing in deep. Gardenias. They were gardenias.

  
He straightened his back, still aware of Ignis standing so close to him on the balcony, and reached out. With a careful hand and gentle fingers so as to not damage the bloom, Prompto cupped one and lifted it towards his face. It was such a shame that Ignis couldn’t see it, but he could smell them and he thought, maybe flowers hadn’t been such a cruel idea after all.

  
There was a hand next to his and the brush of knuckles against his skin in a way that’s both startling and achingly familiar. Prompto went still, like moving would break the spell and scare that hand away, so he waited with bated breath until he felt fingers intertwine with his. 

  
When Ignis squeezed his hand, he squeezed back.


	2. Ignis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this chapter was an additional companion story included in the zine's digital bouqlet!)

He said he needed a new apartment, and that was mostly where things started.

A new place, a clean slate, somewhere he could reasonably walk to places nearby and have some illusion of self sufficiency without worrying about getting lost or run over. A smaller living space that wasn’t a cluster of hazards for trips and falls.

Ignis could have made it work, they all could have made it work. He knew that Noctis and Gladio would have taken the extra time to drive through traffic to his old apartment without complaint, help him make it into something liveable again with his new affliction. He knew that the building he used to live in, while not optimal, was far from hopeless. The wonders of modern technologies and the small changes he could have made in a home he was already familiar with, making it perfectly reasonable to stay in. Just like walking from the bedroom to the kitchen for a glass of water in the dark. Except now he didn’t have the option to turn the lights back on and sometimes new places were cleaner to deal with. Sometimes it wasn’t a physical place, but the mental feel of it and all the memories latched there.

That, and the fact that Ignis had always been stubborn.

“I’ll come visit,” Noctis said, again and again, giving Ignis reassurances he didn’t need until the grip on his new cane tightened.

“I’ll check in on you,” Gladio said, again and again, and Ignis wanted so badly to say back that he didn’t need to. Neither of them needed to hover like this and bend over backwards in his aid.

But they needed to. And that was the worst of it.

  
  


* * *

There was the time he had dropped a drink and sent ice cubes and water flying across the floor, all mingled with shards of broken glass, and Ignis standing there in bare feet with no idea where to step. There was the time he thought he was making at attempt at being normal, when he tried to cook again. He was _trying_. Which, even if they didn’t say it in so many words, was what Noctis and Gladio had been attempting to get him to do instead of sitting alone in a dark apartment feeling sorry for himself. Maybe they hadn’t seen that last part, but they knew he wasn’t doing _fine_ , no matter how many times he said he was. He sliced his hand open while cutting onions and spent more time standing in his kitchen, towel pressed to the wound, wondering if he could get away with hiding it, than time spent waiting for Gladio to arrive when he finally caved in.

Ignis was not a man that easily accepted help.

He liked to think the knife incident was not the cause of it, but maybe that was disingenuous. When Noctis made the polite, roundabout suggestion that he get a hobby, the implication was clear. A request he find a hobby not including sharp objects. 

So a hairbrained scheme was formed and suddenly his two friends, thick as thieves, were knocking down his door. What a curious coincidence that they should both suddenly have the brilliant idea that growing plants in his lonely apartment was the perfect solution to too much empty time. 

* * *

It was difficult sometimes, not to take things out on whoever was around, not to snap and bite at whoever was close. His neighbor in the hallway, the honest mistake of tripping on his cane while rounding the corner, and Ignis was clenching his jaw and swallowing words that weren’t deserved. He couldn’t direct his anger at those that were innocent, he couldn’t blame someone caught in the crossfire for his annoyances with Gladio. _Meetin’ people’s not so hard_ , he said, _Iggy you should introduce yourself to your neighbors, you should talk to new people more, you should try to get out, you should_ …

He should keep his mouth shut and not let misplaced irritation turn him into a viper. 

He remembered… 

A stuttering voice and a warm hand, so warm he could feel it through his glove, and he thought he felt staring, but who _didn’t_ stare at the blind man with the scars. He would have remembered more had he not been so focused on wanting Gladiolus to _stop talking_ , to keep his discomfort to a minimum, but that was being unkind. Gladio meant well, they all meant well, but that would never change the fact that too much help started feeling like overbearing pity and some days Ignis wished they could all just leave him well enough alone.

Prompto was his name. 

And from the sounds of things next door, he didn’t leave the house much more than Ignis, but it felt like he was snooping when he heard keys in locks and doors slamming, footsteps down the hallway past his apartment. Everyone had their own cadence. Everyone had their own rhythm and feeling, ways to tell who was wandering past even when Ignis tried to Ignore it, he couldn’t. It was all he had now. His way around the world. He listened to Prompto come and go, and pace his room and live his quiet life indoors, and Ignis thought about what Gladio said.

_Meetin’ people’s not so hard Iggy._

Maybe not. Maybe so.

* * *

“He likes you.”

Gladio’s voice was a low rumble of amusement when the apartment door was shut. He was there once again to do all the heavy lifting, carrying new pots and planters up to Ignis’s apartment, different shapes to feel for different light and water requirements. Forever and always Noct’s partner in crime. Ignis did not have a green thumb and he did not particularly want a balcony garden and he didn’t need his eyes to know that the plants he already had weren’t doing well. It was a hobby he had little interest and next to no say in, but pouting in a corner with his arms crossed was less than productive. He did wonder though, if Noctis would drop it and leave him be without little tasks and ideas of how best to keep him occupied. If he overwatered the round pots, stopped watering the square pots. Stuck the sunny pots in the shade and the low light plants outside. Something always stopped him from actually going through with it.

“Who?”

He heard the sigh, air leaving Gladio’s nose in annoyance at Ignis’s petulance. Not annoyed enough to drop the subject. 

“Blondie next door.”

There was a thud as Gladio set the pots down and soon he’d insist on making Ignis pick out sprouts. Herbs and vegetables and blooms that Noctis had set his determination on. Pretty things that Ignis couldn’t see and thus deemed an irrelevant waste of time. Even when Noctis said, _“Yeah but Iggy, you can smell them_.

“You been talking to him? ‘Cause I think you should invite him over,” Gladio asked and Ignis huffed, only the impropriety (and irritation that Noct was rubbing off on him more than he cared to admit) stopped him from responding with something crass like, _bite me_.

“And why would I do that, Gladiolus?”

He didn’t think Gladio would answer, or if he did it would be something flippant, some joke about how Ignis need to lighten up or get out (or get laid). 

Instead, Gladio said, “You can’t see the way he looks at you. I can.”

* * *

If he _had_ been inviting Prompto over then Gladio didn’t need to hear about it. 

It was like… a secret. Someone outside of Ignis’s past that didn’t know who he was before and wouldn’t be prone to comparisons. He was someone not involved in all of Noctis and Gladio’s well-meaning schemes, someone outside of their hivemind planning and watchful eyes. He should have been grateful to have such friends, not frustrated, but maybe Ignis was only just frustrated with _himself_ , and the fact that he needed watching at all. 

Prompto didn’t watch in the same way. Even if Ignis felt eyes on him, it was a different kind of prickle on the back of his neck. There was something steady in Prompto’s presence. The sounds he could hear next door, the awkward ways in which he offered Ignis help. Endearing, how there was always a buffer of personal space between them, not just physically, but in the mental ways that Prompto didn’t pry. If he needed to, if he absolutely _had_ to, Ignis could walk down the hall and ask Prompto for help.

“You need to go to the store for anything?”

Noctis was draped over his couch, a midweek visit in between errands for his father. A shiny, black car that Ignis could see in his mind’s eye had dropped him off and in a while it would come and pick him back up again. A job that used to belong to Ignis.

“No,” he said, “I made a trip yesterday.”

Noct was quiet, but Ignis imagined he may have been grinning, one with his bottom lip clamped between his teeth. Pleased that Ignis was getting out and about on his own, that he was finally, tediously finding his feet once again. Noct didn’t ask if he had company, and Ignis didn’t specify that he did.

“Your plants look better,” Noctis said after a bit. “I think some of them are bouncing back.”

“I’ve been talking to them,” Ignis said.

“Huh?”

“...Nothing,” he said, “it’s nothing.”

* * *

Ignis’s life had always been ordered, sorted into rows and straight lines, but now it was a spiraling weed, growing with no sense or purpose. The structured repetition of his days was lost, along with his old job, along with his sight. 

Mr. Caelum would find a new position for him, let him come back to work eventually, but not until he was officially slapped with the label of completely healed and well adjusted. The problem of having a family friend as your employer. They all just kept telling him not to worry, to get better, to take his time and to focus on himself. Ignis had never been very good at that. 

He couldn’t watch plants grow, see them as new leaves budded, hues changed from pale yellow greens to deep viridian, but he could feel them. He could touch the soil and brush his fingers over leaves and map their growth in his head, which became its own calendar of the passage of time. 

He would not say he was enjoying it. He would not say to Noctis or to Gladio that he might need more pots and perhaps a ride to the garden center, too far away to walk even with a companion. He would not say that he’d spent some time and a little money researching specialized fertilizer online, or that he’d considered grow lights for when the weather turned again and winter drove his plants indoors. 

He would not say to Prompto that he’d taken his advice. That he’d been telling his plants secrets he couldn’t trust with anyone else. But he did come back and knock on Prompto’s door. He invited him over more frequently, a little touched every time Prompto said yes without a trace of obligation. He showed Prompto his plants, proud of how much they’d been growing, but embarrassed to admit it.

No one needed to know those inner thoughts, and small changes, or the fact that inside, there was a small little something else blooming. A rough start, like every other plant in his care, but if he nurtured it like the rest, it would grow. 

He nurtured in small meetings and knocks on Prompto’s door. He nurtured in slowly letting some of those indestructible walls loosen and crumble _just a little_. 

For now, they could consider themselves friends and if Ignis sorted out his feelings in the scattered mess that was his heart, he could see the seed of something else there.

In time.

All he knew was that he liked being around Prompto. He’d been feeling clean air and warm spring and new life and he was doing better. It might not always be that way, but it was nice to know that there were people there to help him, even if he fought it, and someone new to hold his hand along the way. And if he fell, all that was left to do was get up and try again.


End file.
